The Rialto is inviting you to send in your nature and place-inspired poetry for their competition celebrating the natural world. With our personal universes shrunken to the spaces within walking distance of our homes, wildlife has begun to gradually take back the streets, making this the perfect topic for our peculiar times.
What have you glimpsed in your pond, on your windowsill, in the places for the most part now vacated by humans?
The deadline for entries is Friday 1st March 2022.
Hosted by The Rialto in association with the RSPB, BirdLife International and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, the competition will be judged by Pascale Petit, whose seventh collection, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017), won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize 2018 – the first time a poetry book won this prize for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry best evoking the spirit of a place.
Nature and Place Poetry Competition Prizes
1st prize – £1000
2nd prize – £500
3rd prize – £250
Once the current pandemic restrictions are lifted, one entrant will receive a personal tour with celebrated nature-writer Mark Cocker of his most cherished wildlife places in East Anglia.
How to submit your poems
You can submit up to six poems in one batch. The entry fee for the first poem is £7 (including an administration fee). The fee for each subsequent poem in the batch is £4.
If you wish to submit more than six poems you will need to make a second submission, which will include a second administration fee.
Find full details of how to enter here.
Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley(at)iCloud(dot)com